5+1 mistakes B2B marketers should avoid

1. TARGETING THE WRONG LEADS

Many marketing campaigns are simply targeted at the wrong people. Completely understandable, given that the companies we are marketing into may have a hundred thousand employees or more. Being a "data junkie” is the key here – make sure you’re obsessed by the data the campaign will be sent out to. Its relevancy and its quality.

In a B2B company, LinkedIn and sometimes Facebook and Twitter are necessary; these channels are so popular that most people assume a company doesn't exist if they are not on social media.

Also, take the time to build a brand strategy. You may be on all the right channels, but you may not have an identity consistent enough for people to relate to. A brand strategy will help you decide who your target audience is and how to best speak to them.

2. FORGETTING YOUR BRAND

With all the talk about the importance of engagement, many marketers get so caught up in sharing that they forget to speak for their own brand.  Yes, we need to engage, but we also need to have an identity. Think of it as a conversation. You want to contribute to the conversation by listening and talking, not just one or the other. Make sure that you, and every other employee, are clear on what your brand identity is and start promoting it.

3. NOT FOLLOWING UP ON LEADS

Sometimes, the sales team will commit to follow up on your campaigns themselves. As they get busy, or as other leads turn into bids, the salespeople can become distracted and drop the lead follow up. We need to have a plan if this starts happening. Furthermore,develop a strategy for “slow burners”, also known as the people who have expressed an interest but are not ready to move forward yet. How will the campaign keep them warm until they are ready to buy?

4. BUSINESS PEOPLE ALWAYS WANT PERSONALIZED MARKETING

Personalization has always been a very effective marketing strategy to nurture and relocate potential customers. If a potential customer and the brand have a relationship, then personalization is helpful and thoughtful.

However, personalization should be voluntary. Making personalized outreaches to a customer who does not give permission destroys trust and invades privacy. A recent study shows that before a relationship is built up, if the dissemination of information of a brand is too personal, it will do harm to the brand.

5. FAILING TO INTEGRATE WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONAL ENTITIES 

Partnerships are marketing gold and yet many businesses fail to take advantage of them. Let's partner with a charity, a like-minded company or local businesses and both parties will reap the benefits. With social media, B2B partnering is easier than ever. Simply create a place on your website that talks about your partnership and then both parties will use social media to promote one another. This will lead to greater exposure for everyone and showcase that our company is committed to helping others succeed.

6. MISSING OPPORTUNITIES TO RE-ENGINEER CRM

The convenience and low cost of social media offer the most advantageous opportunities for cost-effective, high-performance customer service and customer relationships since the inventions of the internet and customer relationship management (CRM) software. Companies can offset the cost of social media implementation by re-engineering.

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Synergistic Marketing Campaigns

There are probably two important developments that helped evolve the media mix concept into what we now think of as multi-channel synergistic marketing campaigns:

• A transition by marketing and advertising professionals toward integrated communications. 

This marked a shift in focus from transactions to customer relationships. Even outside the marketing arena, engineers and statisticians were contributing by following the lead of successful Japanese industries that re-engineered business processes around customers’ needs. Power was then shifting to the consumer and the management of  communication processes was being elevated to strategic levels to help build customer relations and drive business results.  In addition, other market realities continued to fuel the trend toward relationship marketing through expanded communication and sales channels, such as:

1. Competition increased while the cost to acquire new customers soared, making it increasingly important to establish solid customer relationships, especially with those who projected high lifetime values.
2. Customers in a satisfied business relationship became clearly recognized as the best source of new business.
3. Privacy concerns and governmental actions placed greater focus on establishing true relationships rather than trying to blindly attract buyers with hit or miss, mass-communication tactics.

• The number of channels available to marketers increased. 

Not only was there now recognition of the importance of building customer relationships and integrating communications, but new electronic media such as web sites and e-mail also added channels. What’s more, there was less distinction between pure communication channels and sales channels. Increasingly,the two were becoming one and the same. What is evident is that consumers prefer personalized communications:

CAP VENTURES DATABASE

The New Era of Marketing: Personalization Über Alles

New methods of marketing are emerging that seek to more effectively use prospect and customer data to filter target lists, construct personalization rules and produce and execute marketing campaigns across and among the full range of media  channels available. The most successful campaigns reach consumers in a sequenced and extremely consistent manner. This creates an indirect benefit of enforcing and enhancing corporate branding.Therefore, organizations that can harness the power of other marketing channels and produce more personalized communications could put themselves in a good position to capture market share from those that don’t. There are two critical components to effective multi-channel marketing campaigns: Creating relevant offers via personalization and coordination and management of multiple marketing channels.

In a multi-channel marketing context (emails, newsletters, printed brochures, social media, etc.) personalization means using what is known about the recipient to create the offer, customize the messaging and deliver it to them in the form at requested. For channels other than telemarketing, this can include personalized greetings, relevant messages based on demographics and compelling graphics. Actually, response rates increase dramatically with an increase in the number of personalization elements. As the number of personalization elements increases from one to seven ,the click through rate more than triples, increasing from 4. 7% to 14. 8 % .

Source:YesMail

The other critical element lies  in the design and execution of campaigns that coordinate among the full breadth of channels available to reach prospective buyers. Much like personalization, this requires strategic and tactical planning. When marketers can sequence communications and “hit” prospective customers with consistent communications through various media channels, the effectiveness of campaigns increases greatly.

Data and Content Management

More than half the battle in effective marketing campaigns is acquiring and maintaining good prospect and customer data. It is important for sellers to build a repository that allows them to effectively utilize unique attributes to segment prospects and customers. Using these attributes, marketing managers can build the personalization rules and determine which prospects should receive proscribed offers, and more specifically, which messages. Once the campaign is designed, in many cases the seller (and often a third-party service provider such as an advertising agency) creates the content to support the marketing campaign.

Traditionally, sellers have created content specifically for each campaign in a tactical fashion, failing to leverage the messaging and graphical elements for other channels. Sellers are increasingly developing and managing content in a more strategic, collaborative fashion that enables content to be shared not only among media channels, but also across campaigns.

Strategies for Synergistic Marketing Campaigns

The Customer is King 

Just as an oil company would not blindly drill small holes in the earth in search of oil, your organization shouldn’t contact millions of consumers blindly, banking on a very small portion accepting your offer. Rather, seek out or build a repository that identifies which consumers are more likely to find your offer compelling.

Get Customers to Opt-in  

Companies that can build their own opt-in lists, or use qualified industry opt-in  resources, are  in  a  better  position to  communicate  and  market to  both  consumers and businesses. Explore methods, such as periodic e-mail newsletters, that provide valuable information and purchase opportunities simultaneously.

Invest in Personalizing Communications

The overwhelming response to the “do not call” registry underscores consumer frustration with intrusive, irrelevant communications. Research shows that by a ratio of over 3:1, recipients prefer personalized communications. Research also shows that the more personalized an offer is, the higher likelihood of response. It will require an increased investment in creating content and designing campaigns, but you can expect double-digit response rates.

Leverage More Effective Customer Channels 

Design and execute new marketing campaigns that leverage the full spectrum of marketing channels. Personalized direct mail, permission-based e-mail and Int e r n e t technologies can be employed to dramatically increase the returns on the marketing dollar. Coordinate marketing  campaigns using multiple  channels and take advantage  of the “multiplier effect.”

Simplify the Transition by Using Service Providers 

Personalizing communications and running multi-channel campaigns can be a challenge for those selling organizations that do not currently have the technology or process infrastructure to develop multi-channel strategies, manage customer data, manage marketing content and execute integrated campaigns. Sellers will find that there are several service providers that can help them transition from their current practices to leverage more effective marketing practices.

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Corporate Strategy by Ansoff

 Before the report of the project on the lost Twitter bird(our previous post-an experiment on how to go viral on Twitter),let's take a break and talk about Ansoff.
Ansoff’s 1965 classic, Corporate Strategy, contains one of business’s most important and enduring strategic formulations. Before becoming a distinguished academic, writer, and consultant in the mid-1960s,Ansoff progressed through a series of planning positions at the Rand Corporation and Lockheed, ending this phase of his career as vice president and general manager of the Industrial Technology Division at Lockheed Electronics. Experience with diversification planning helped him formulate key issues and tensions that firms face in choosing a growth strategy. The operating problem is akin to determining the best way to milk a cow. The strategic challenge is of a different order: “But if our basic interest is not the cow but in the most milk we can get for our investment, we must make sure that we have the best cow money can buy.”
 In strategic terms,this translates into product-market combinations that are most advantageous to the firm. The Product-Market matrix (sometimes called the Corporate Strategy matrix) defines the options for achieving this.The Two Dimensions and Their Extremes. The Product-Market matrix explores two key dimensions: Product and Market.

Product. Businesses are built around products and services that define their value offering. Most offerings are limited in at least two ways: time, in that their relevance diminishes and redesign or renewal is usually required, and transferability, in that they tend to work best under certain market conditions. Ansoff noted that modifying the core offering is a key strategic choice.
Market. Generally applied as Market options, this dimension distinguishes between customer markets that are well established and known to the firm versus all the rest that are not.

The Four Quadrants. In Ansoff’s terms, each of the four possible options defines a core strategic response to a different set of internal and external conditions. Careful assessment leads to better understanding and decision making:


• Upper left: Product Development. Marketers understand the enormous value of a positive customer relationship and the goodwill and trust that go with it. This relationship capital allows a company to make new product offers more effectively and inexpensively to existing customers than to new ones. The advantages of this must be weighed against the possible damage resulting from negative spillover from the new to the existing product experience should it not be entirely satisfactory. When Stihl, the maker of the world’s top chain saws began to sell augurs, hedge trimmers, and complementary items such as cut-retardant leg chaps, it was practicing Product Development. Heineken has achieved great success by introducing over eighty brands around the world.

• Lower left: Market Penetration. This is the de facto strategy: change nothing and sell more of the same to existing customers. When a business does not consciously select a growth or diversification strategy, it is doing this. When Stihl sells to the forestry industry, it is in this quadrant, as is Heineken when it supplies beer to European drinkers. This is the preferred strategy when a company’s product is performing well and there is room to increase market share.

• Lower right: Market Development. A well-developed product can be introduced into new markets to extend its value. This is ideal when little modification is required and room for growth in the original market is restricted.Products as diverse as food, pharmaceuticals, and automobiles fit this category.When Stihl reached out to recreational users and North American buyers, it was employing a Market Development strategy, as was Heineken when it began exporting its beer outside Europe, with great success.

Time for diversification?

• Upper right: Diversification. Diversification represents a near total strategic overhaul, simultaneously trading in both Product and Market. It is the most challenging, costly, and risky of the options. New skills and relationships need to be developed. Companies choose this strategy in conjunction with one or more of the others or when they have recognized a crisis. Ideally, there is a gradual migratory path leading from the known to the unknown. It would be easier for Stihl to evolve into a retail hardware supplier, say, than a candy manufacturer or entertainment company(The Power of the 2 x 2 Matrix). The recent misfortunes of Seagram’s Distillers and Vivendi’s (historically a water and utility company) painful transformation into a communications, media, and entertainment company are a reminder of the riskiness of Diversification.

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